Cognitive Flashcards
The working memory model - description
Baddeley and Hitch (1974) created the working memory model to explain how short term memory is organised and functions. The model consists of four main components: the central executive and three slave-subsystems (the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer).
Central executive
An attentional process that has a supervisory role in short term memory. It focuses, divides and switches our limited attention, whilst monitoring incoming data, making decisions and allocating slave-subsystems tasks. It has a limited processing capacity and does not store information
Phonological loop
A slave-subsystem dealing with auditory information, it encodes information acoustically and preserves its initial order. It is subdivided into the phonological store, which stores auditory information, and the articulatory control centre, which allows maintenance rehearsal in order to keep them in the phonological store when they are needed, its capacity is believed to be equivalent to two seconds of speech.
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
A slave-subsystem that deals with visual and spatial information. Logie (1995) subdivided the visuo-spatial sketchpad into the visual cache, which stores visual data, and the inner scribe, which records the arrangement of objects in a visual field allowing the rehearsal of visual/spatial information.
Episodic buffer
A slave-subsystem that was added to the model in 2000. It is a temporary store that integrates the acoustic, visual and spatial information processed by other subsystems. It also maintains a sense of time sequencing and combines this information with long term memory.
Working memory model - strengths
Dual task studies
Application to understanding amnesia
Working memory model - weaknesses
Lack of clarity of central executive - ‘the central executive is the most important but least understood element’ Baddeley (2003), it needs to be more clearly specified than simply as attention
Not a complete explanation of memory - it does not include any explanation of long-term memory or how the memory is encoded and retrieved
Dual task studies - Baddeley (1975)
Found that when participants performed a visual and verbal task together performance on each was no worse than when they were carried out separately. On the other hand when two visual or verbal tasks were performed together performance on both was considerably worse, this is because they both compete for the same slave-subsystem. Therefore it supports the working memory model as it shows that short-term memory is split into separate slave-subsystems.
Multi-store memory model
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968). It describes the encoding, storage and retrieval of information in to the sensory register, short and long term memory
Sensory register
All stimuli from the environment pass into the sensory register (one store for each sense). The duration is between 0.2 and 0.5 seconds and they have a high capacity. Attention transfers this information into the STM.
Short-term memory store (STM)
Temporary memory store
Capacity - 7 plus or minus 2 chunks (Miller 1956)
Encoding - acoustically (Baddeley 1966)
Duration - 18-30 seconds (Peterson and Peterson 1959)
The duration can be extended through maintenance rehearsal and if rehearsed long enough it will pass into the LTM
Long-term memory store (LTM)
Potentially permanent memory store
Capacity - unlimited
Encoding - semantic (Baddeley 1966)
Duration - unlimited
For information to be recalled it has to be retrieved from the LTM to the STM
Multi-store memory model - strengths
Baddeley (1966)
HM
Application to improving memory - the capacity of the STM can be improved by chunking, fifteen letters could be remembered if they are in groups of three
Baddeley (1966 a,b)
Shows that the STM and LTM are different stores. We tend to mix up similar sounding words in our STM and similar meaning words when we use our LTM, supporting that encoding is different so it cannot be the same store
HM - multi-store memory model
HM had an operation on his hippocampus, severely affecting his memory. He was able to create new short term memories, however he was unable to create new long term ones. This shows that the LTM and STM must be separate stores as one can be damaged whilst the other isnt
Multi-store memory model - weaknesses
More than one type of STM - the working memory model suggests that there a multiple stores that make up the STM (the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad)
KF
KF was involved in a motorcycle accident, affecting their memory. Their digit span was very poor when the words were read aloud but improved when he read the digits. This shows that there must be two separate components of short term memory.
Tulving (1972)
Split long term memory into two separate components: episodic and semantic.
